Contracts & Procurements at New Royal Adelaide Hospital

Contracts & Procurements
New Royal Adelaide Hospital
4/11/2019

New Royal Adelaide Hospital
Table of Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................2
Organization Background..................................................................................................................2
Procurement Context.........................................................................................................................2
Major Complexities...........................................................................................................................2
Environment & Organization Aspects, Project Leadership & Governance........................................3
Risks, Mitigations & Learnings.............................................................................................................3
Summary of Key Findings.....................................................................................................................6
Best Practices....................................................................................................................................6
Project & Procurement Managers: Primary Duties & Responsibilities..............................................7
Reflection Journal..................................................................................................................................8
References...........................................................................................................................................10
1

New Royal Adelaide Hospital
Introduction
Organization Background
The organization for which this report is written is new Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH).
There is a lot of change that is happening in the external environment of the organization. For
example, the competitors are now moving on to advanced tools and equipment for the
enhancement of the medical facilities. There are changes in the healthcare regulations and
policies. The customer expectations and requirements are also altering. With these external
factors in perspectives and the internal requirements of the organization, it is decided by the
hospital management to develop an advanced facility for the patients and move the existing
one to the improved one. The decision is taken after analysing the financial and non-financial
benefits that it may provide. There will be numerous activities and resources involved in the
project and the budget of AUD 2.3 Billion are finalized.
The project aim is to enhance the healthcare services, quality, patient experience, and the
engagement levels of the medical professionals. As a result, the new facility will have 800
patient beds along with inpatient facility and forty technical suites deisgned as per latest
methodologies. The healthcare tools are now being designed in an integrated manner by using
the concepts of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) along with the
existing healthcare technology and medical guidelines. The reflection of the same will be
done in the new set-up (McMahon, 2015).
Procurement Context
Procurement is one of the significant areas that will be involved in the project. There will be
numerous healthcare, technical, infrastructural, and operations tools and equipment that will
be procured. South Australian Health will be the primary body that will be responsible and
accountable for the procurements. It has already initiated the process and has developed
Strategic Acquisition Plan. This plan will be first approved by State Procurement Board
(SPB) before it is brought in action (Scurfield, 2016).
The procurement plan focussed on the methodology to be adopted during the process, risk
management in the procurement process, and the roles & responsibilities of the resources
involved.
2

New Royal Adelaide Hospital
Major Complexities
The project aim is to enhance the healthcare services, quality, patient experience, and the
engagement levels of the medical professionals. In order to achieve the project aim, it became
necessary to procure material and equipment in all of the areas involved, such as technical,
healthcare, infrastructure, and likewise. The acquisition plan that was developed failed to
include these details. It mainly focussed only on the healthcare aspect of the project and listed
down the details, assessment, and information on the healthcare tools and materials only. The
probity assurance levels also had some gaps (Azadegan & Ashenbaum, 2009).
There were certain project-specific risks that came up as an outcome. The risks associated
with project schedule were observed in which the enhanced probability of schedule overrun
was witnessed. The schedule that was estimated by the members of the project and
procurement teams did not match up with the actual values (Verbano & Crema, 2015).
Environment & Organization Aspects, Project Leadership & Governance
There were several regulatory bodies associated with the project that led to the emergence of
certain confusions and the absence on the clarity of the authority and ownership.
Communication management between all of these entities also came up as a primary cause of
concern for the project manager. This is because the stakeholders and the external entities
involved could not be present at a same time for discussing the project issues and risks. There
were numerous changes demanded by the clients at regular intervals due to the lack of
adequate governance and control. It also led to the leadership issues and demanded the use of
enhanced leadership styles and abilities (Tadelis, 2012).
Risks, Mitigations & Learnings
Risk Category of the
Risk
Mitigations Learnings
The emergence of too
many changes at regular
intervals of the process
could lead to the
situation of scope creep
and there could have
Contractual The use of defined change
management techniques and
processes applied since the
initiation of the project and
the approval of the changes
only when they are absolutely
It is certain that there will be
some changes in the project
during its timeline. However,
there must be a defined
change management and
control process in place. This
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